Vintage Corner - Journey of Prodigy Mandolin U Srinivas May 1986

This Video covers the journey and success story of this Prodigee Mandling player, Master U Srinivas. He was barely 12 when he started playing at Music Academy. His raise was meteoric and the end so quick and early in his life.

This Programme was first aired in India by Doordarshan and this upload is from a VHS Recording of 23 years and now Digitally remastered.

Uppalapu Srinivas (28 February 1969 – 19 September 2014) was an Indian mandolin player in Carnatic classical music and composer. He was widely regarded as the Mozart of classical Indian music. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1998, by the Government of India.He was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2009 given by Sangeet Natak Akademi, which is the National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama, in India.
He was the first musician to use the electric mandolin in Carnatic music: he modified the electric western instrument, using five single strings instead of the traditional four doubled strings to suit the Carnatic pitch, raga system, and especially gamakas, or nuanced oscillations. After initial reluctance, he found wide acceptance and critical acclaim in the following decades. Starting in 1982, he performed regularly during the December season of the prestigious Madras Music Academy, performing there every year except in 2002 - December 23 of each year was a reserved slot for U. Srinivas - the highest accolade.

He made his debut public Carnatic concert performance in 1978 during the Thyagaraja Aradhana festival at Gudivada in Andhra Pradesh. Thereafter, at age eleven, in 1981, he gave his first public concert in Chennai at the Indian Fine Arts Society during the December Music Season, and never looked back. The skeptics were convinced and soon mesmerized, connoisseurs fell in love with him, and patrons of the arts could not have enough of him. At age eleven, a star was born, who was both revered and adored.[1][10][13] He started off playing the acoustic mandolin, but he later switched to the electric mandolin as he felt it allowed the playing of lengthy, sustained notes - the quintessential component in classical Indian music - in addition to making them clearly audible.[9] George Harrison's favorite piece of Indian music was Mandolin Ecstasy. "It was, like, my dad's favourite album of all time," says (Dhani) Harrison. "U Srinivas is 27 now and still making music. He plays an electric five-string mandolin, he's fantastic